Assurance, confidence and narrowness of focus all meet each other on the same road leading to \u2018success\u2019. Growing up in 20th Century North America was like being in a pressure cooker of success, spurred on by capitalism\u2019s constant call for innovation, and the delivery of the next great artifact, product or solution to peddle to the masses for profit. A stroll through the one of the Smithsonian exhibits in Washington DC last month showcased the greatness of America because of their amazing ingenuity. It is as if there\u2019s something in the d.n.a. of our society, passed down from previous generations. And, I will argue, all this glitz and glamour has a cost to society in general, but also to the Evangelical church\u2019s epistemology in the Western consciousness.<\/p>\n
In exploring the contrast between David W. Bebbington\u2019s Evangelicalism in Modern Britain<\/em> and Jason Paul Clark\u2019s\u00a0Evangelicalism and Capitalism<\/em>, I found strong links between evangelicalism\u2019s origins in Great Britain and North America forged in a time of great 19th Century optimism, and the idiosyncrasies of Evangelicalism I swim in currently. First I will tease out some foundations in Evangelicalism\u2019s early growth and then consider how contemporary post-modern expressions of evangelicalism are either moving to more moderate, ecumenical expressions, or are falling suspect to a reductionism and irrelevance.<\/p>\n As a historian in the U.K., Bebbington developed a quadrilateral of priorities to describe what distinguished the Evangelical arm of the Christian faith from the rest. These four special marks are<\/span><\/p>\n This seems very confident and self-assured. Despite seeing its self-image as \u201cchangeless\u201d and constant, Bebbington remarks that this is not the case, but that it\u2019s inward and outward expressions have changed over the course of the two-and-a-half centuries of its existence [2].<\/p>\n In his chapter, Evangelical Anxiety: From Assurance to Providence,<\/em> Jason Clark argues that there is an often underestimation of the new anxieties created by an Enlightenment epistemology, that meant it was no longer sufficient to simply experience the gift of salvation, but that in it having to be accompanied by assurance, the proof was in the necessity for all followers of Jesus to become active in giving a direct witness for faith through reason [3]. I agree with Clark\u2019s assessment that this seems perfectly timed in the context of merging capitalism to create a new anxiety to be busy for God, and performance-based in the exercise of one\u2019s faith [4].<\/p>\n In a similar vein, Richard Beck reasons that this moral performance was influenced by \u201cthe Protestant work ethic\u201d, in the context of the Enlightment, which, for his purpose in writing Hunting Magic Eels, <\/em>he argues that the sense of wonder and miracle gets lost completely, and replaced with piety, purity, holiness, morality, and “doing good” [5].<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Again, as the 20th Century opened, The Enlightenment\u2019s optimism was on display at the first World\u2019s Fair, developing all manner of tools to make work lighter. In the Christian faith, the modern missions movement blossomed with this individualized, internalized, and spiritualized soul-saving, with an eschatological urgency, \u00a0waiting for Jesus to come back immanently. Instead, the two great wars came, and the Great Depression.<\/p>\n The critique is now playing out, that Evangelicalism is co-opted by political ideology and reductionist moralism, charged as being \u201cnarrow\u201d [6]. Bebbington, on this narrowness of Evangelical life, writes, <\/span><\/p>\n [It] has been a frequent reproach. It is true that its tendency to erect barriers against worldliness often did make it a restricted sphere. Its large claims and internal idiosyncrasies made it an easy target for cheap satire. Yet it has shaped the thought-world of a large proportion of the population. It has exerted an immense influence both on individuals and on the course of social and political development, particularly in the later nineteenth century. And it has shown a receptivity that goes some way towards modifying the charge of narrowness [7].<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Modernity, Manifest Destiny, the anxieties of capitalism, and the \u2018need to do\u2019 have been passed down to subsequent generations of Evangelicals. In my work with the Lausanne Movement, there are voices within the movement to this day who advocate for either an industrial approach, in which we make and achieve clear goals that result in the completion of the Great Commission, based on a reading of Matthew 24:14 (\u201cthe good news of the Kingdom will be preached among all nations, and then the end will come\u201d), such as Rick Warren\u2019s Finishing The Task<\/em> [8], or an indigenous one, hearkening back to the original call from the Latin Fraternity for an Integral, holistic approach to Mission that lives out God\u2019s justice, and shares the good news, in anticipation for when God will make all things new through Jesus Christ, based on Revelation 21:5, such as the work of INFEMIT [9].<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ______________<\/p>\n [1] David W. Bebbington, <\/span>Evangelicalism in Modern Britain\u202f: A History From the 1730s to the 1980s,<\/span><\/em> London: Routledge, 1993, 2-3.<\/span><\/p>\n [2] Evangelicalism in Modern Britain<\/em>, 269. Bebbington writes, \u201cIts outward expressions, such as its social composition and political attitudes, have frequently been transformed. Its inward principles, embracing teaching about Christian theology and behaviour, have altered hardly less. Nothing could be further from the truth than the common image of Evangelicalism being ever the same. Yet Evangelicals themselves have often fostered the image. They have claimed that their brand of Christianity, the form once delivered to the saints, has possessed an essentially changeless content so long as it has remained loyal to its source\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n [3] Clark, Jason, <\/span>Evangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogeneses in the Relationship,<\/span><\/em> London School of Theology, 2018, 59.<\/span><\/p>\n [4] Evangelicalism and Capitalism<\/span><\/em>, <\/em>49. Clark asserts, \u201cWe will see how the Puritan inner anxiety assuaged by the doctrine of assurance migrated into new anxieties within the context of emerging capitalism, and how that assurance then relocated to the doctrine of providence for calming those new anxieties\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n [5] Beck, Richard, Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age,<\/em> 1517 Media, 2021, 37. Beck fleshes this out by saying, \u201cMuch of this moral performance is captured by “the Protestant work ethic”: being an honest, thrifty, hardworking, morally upright, chari-table, and tax-paying citizen. And wherever Protestants are found on the liberal, progressive, Democratic side of the political aisle, “being a good person” looks like social justice and environmental activism. For Protestants, liberal or conservative, morality and politics are central and on the front burner. Encountering God is increasingly an afterthought, if it is thought of at all\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n [6] Evangelicalism in Modern Britain<\/em>,.274. Mark Noll is cited for this adjective from his work, Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.<\/em><\/p>\n [7] Evangelicalism in Modern Britain<\/em>, 274.<\/p>\n [8] Web page. N.d. https:\/\/finishingthetask.com.<\/p>\n [9] Web page. N.d. https:\/\/infemit.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Assurance, confidence and narrowness of focus all meet each other on the same road leading to \u2018success\u2019. 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